It’ll be eight years in November since I retired completely from my (40 plus years) full time nursing career.

While I was working, I tried to maintain a well-balanced work/home life. Sometimes I was successful, sometimes not so much. I have no regrets. My career was good to me and I made many lifelong friends along the way.

In retirement, it’s no longer a balancing of work and home life. It’s all home life, so the challenge sometimes, is to maintain more of a well-rounded life.

Each day, I try to include the people and things that fill my bucket – contact with family and friends, writing, exercise, photography and photo editing, reading, research, technology, meal planning and cooking good food, time outdoors in nature, music, and travel or travel planning. Most days, I’m able include all of these things.

The perfect round sphere of this spent Salsify flower inspired today’s post. On yesterday morning’s walk, I saw many of these. Most were missing seed parachutes that had already taken flight on a summer breeze. This complete one made me stop and go back for the photo.

Photo Note: I tried a couple of edits on the original colour photo, but decided I liked the black and white rendering best because it emphasizes the perfection of the spent flower.

“Live a balanced life – learn some and drink some and draw some and paint some and sing and dance and play and work everyday some.”

Robert Fulghum